CLOUD COMPUTING
The world is in awe of how vastly influential “The Cloud” has become. We surf, communicate, store data and regularly do much more via the Cloud, turning it into a day-to-day necessity. So what exactly is the “Cloud” and how relevant is it to us?
Let’s get an insight into the cloud as well as cloud computing and dive in through its wonders.
Cloud vs Cloud Computing
The word “Cloud” is, quite simply, a metaphor for the “Internet” and often refers to servers that are accessible over the Internet along with the software and databases that run upon them.
If the cloud is a global network of servers, each having its unique purpose, Cloud computing is a model for enabling on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly released.
These resources include tools and applications like data storage, servers, databases, networking, and software. It is the use of remote servers on the Internet to store, manage and process data rather than local servers.
Popular cloud service providers to the public include Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, etc.
Salient Features:-
· On-demand self-service
· Broad-network access
· Resource pooling
· Rapid elasticity
· Measured service
· Multi-tenacity
Types of Cloud
1. Public: The public cloud is defined as computing services owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider over the public internet, making them easily accessible to the general public.
Eg. AWS, Microsoft Assure, IBM’s Blue Cloud, and Sun Cloud.
2. Private: The private cloud, also called the internal cloud or corporate cloud, is a cloud computing environment in which all hardware and software resources are dedicated exclusively and accessible only by a single person. These services are accessible within an organization and are more secure.
E.g. AWS, VMware.
3. Hybrid: The hybrid cloud is a mixture of storage and services environments made up of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and a public cloud in which the critical activities are performed using the private cloud while the non-critical activities are performed using the public cloud.
4. Community: It is owned, managed, and operated by one or more organizations in the community, a third party, or a combination of them. The community cloud allows systems and services to be accessible by a group of organizations.
How it functions
IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service
Here, the cloud service provider “rents” out computational services in the form of servers, virtual machines, etc. for use in a pay-as-you-go format which provides the end-user flexibility in choosing to compute power and allows them to pay only for the speed and performance they seek for a specified duration.
PaaS — Platform as a Service
This service is made up of a programming language execution environment, an operating system, a web server, and a database. In this cost-effective, scalable model you manage data and application resources wherein all other resources are managed by a vendor.
SaaS — Software as a Service
It is a service that offers on-demand pay-per-use application software to users. This service is platform-independent. The cloud runs a single instance of the software and makes it available for multiple end-users, making cloud computing cheap. This frees the developer from the time and effort wasted on setting up workspaces. They provide various software solutions that are robust, highly scalable, and ready to use within a few minutes.
Serverless Computing
These are analogous to Function-as-Service (FaaS), where the cloud provides a code execution model for use on demand. It works like a transaction and is billed not by raw compute time, but by several transactions.
Advantages of Cloud Computing
1. Backup and Recovery: Various cloud service providers offer reliable and flexible backup and recovery solutions since our data is stored in the cloud. Hence the cloud makes this process much simpler than the traditional method of storing the same on a physical device.
2. Accessibility: We can get access to all data via a cloud connection, mainly the internet.
3. Cost-effective: Because the services are pay-as-you-go, there are significant cost savings from not having to allocate resources for expected peaks in demand. Even small companies can utilize the benefits at affordable flexible billing rates as it eliminates investment in software, hardware, server license fee, data storage, etc.
Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
1. Privacy and security: While adopting this technology, we surrender our company’s sensitive information to a third-party cloud service provider. Thus, the data is probably never in one place due to the global scales of such cloud networks and so the data protection rules are ambiguous in some cases.
2. Downtime: Cloud service providers take care of several clients each day, but a heavy load can lead to business processes being temporarily suspended.
3. Lock-In: It is very difficult for the customer to switch from one cloud service provider to another as each of them uses different standard languages for their platforms.
3. Reliance on the Internet: An internet interruption can result in you losing all computational capacity. The user loses access to their hosted services and running machines when they are offline as the cloud is connected through the internet.
Emerging trends
• SaaS and Cloud-Ready Applications
Because of the widespread use of cloud computing, there is a growth in cloud-native development and therefore software as a service.
• Cloud Development
Hosting the development environment on the cloud can give the user access globally and provisions for collaboration.
• Analytics and Big Data
Cloud resources are now often used for aggregating and processing huge datasets and extracting information.
Build your career in Cloud Computing:
1. [Google] Certification in Google Cloud Google Cloud Certification
2. [Coursera] 5 Cloud Certifications to Start Your Cloud Career in 2022 https://www.coursera.org/articles/cloud-certifications-for-your-it-career
3. [GeeksforGeeks] Top 10 Most Valuable Cloud Computing Certifications Top 10 Most Valuable Cloud Computing Certifications — GeeksforGeeks
So, with this, we have covered the basics of cloud computing. It is an emerging area of interest to many people and can produce a large number of job opportunities in the future. The trends in cloud computing are expanding to the public largely. It is a good career option to pursue as well.